Wheelchair Willie

Willie's full name on the streets was Wheelchair Willie, and he always needed a push up the drawbridge on Main Street. When the bridge is down, there is a gradient up to the middle where the two sections meet. It is not a steep gradient, and Willie really should have been able to hack it, but there usually was a crowd of people around, and 9 times out of 10, if Willie asked someone, they would give him a push, and happily; not only would they push him up the one side of the bridge walkway, they would continue guiding him down the other side, but it ain't necessary, since the slope there is downhill away from the middle, but they tend to get to talking about things on the way up and do not want to cut their chat short. Once you got the hang of the wheelchair, it went real easy, and the men - it's mostly men who were the pushers - the men felt like they're doing a good deed, as it would surely be if Willie were all that messed up, and the bridge were all that steep, but he's got strong arms and can race up the steep rear driveway to the back door of The Licker Locker with a full duffel of empties... and like I said, the grade is easy, real easy, like it's paved with good intentions.

So my brother who can barely walk, has toenails that look like dinosaur talons, and has had part of his lung removed pushed Wheelchair Willie once. He told me this and I looked at him, and said why did Willie ask him? I mean, were the other people hanging around the Bucket of Blood Saloon so messed up that the guy with the plate where his cervical vertebrae used to be, he was the boy of summer?
"You pushed him?" I asked.
"Yeh."
I did not get it. "Well, how come I have to haul your ass around town because you have such a tough time gettin' 'round, and you can push a wheelchair full of three hundred pounds of black man up a bridge?"
"Willie weighs about a hundred pounds, maybe less."
"So you gave him a hand?"
"I didn't want to."
"Christian charity, " I said. "You'll be sorry."

He was sorry. Willie must have taken a liking to him, because afterward he'd shoo away other eager helpers, and he's scoot over to where my brother stood in the street in front of the Bucket, smoking a cigarette with the rest of 'em ( smoking had been outlawed in public places a year ago ). If my brother spotted him in time, he'd drop the butt and duck, and Willie sort of do circles looking at the bricks walls and the brick streets, searching.

So I laugh when I hear about it. I tell him it's what he deserves. What the heck does he think, spending his time stumbling over every curb in town and then pushing Wheelchair Willie up and down bridges like some bloody fool.
"If I hurt myself. I'll sue 'im." he says, giving me a grin. I notice a black spot where a tooth is missing; a gap. I'd better get him to the dentist before the Governor of Michigan shuts down Medicaid.

He did re-injure his lumbar vertebrae one day pushing that wheelchair. They were walking, pushing, and talking about prescription drugs on the black market, as it were, and his back gave out. He said he was serious about suing Willie for everything he got, even if it's just that shitty wheelchair. I hummed and didn't say nothing. But Willie outsmarted him again. Willie died just before the Governor of Michigan took away his welfare; Willie spun out on the icy streets of a town that had exhausted their snow clearing money and could not afford to put salt on the roads by the middle of February of a particular cold winter. He lost control going up that grade, went into the road, spun out, and a car hit him and knocked him clear into next Sunday.
At first, they could not find his body, for it had gone over the railing and hit the rotten ice in the river, breaking it and going through. It was a full mystery, and people shook their heads, thinking of a whole muddle of magic and miracles for Port Desespoir. But then they found him.